THE PLUNGING EXPECTATIONS OF SPECIAL ED PROGRAMS
I'll start with the observation that, of course, there are Special Ed programs staffed by effective self-taught teachers of remedial reading for the dyslexic.  (Universities don't train them for it.) There is, however, a glut of Special Ed reading operations that, for a dyslexic, are not programs.  They are sentences. The first thing that happens in their incarceration is that expectations are derived from invalid evaluation of their abilities.  

Why do I start such things as this at bedtime?  I'll be back with case studies.  The first will be Joey, grade-6, a bright dyslexic who tested at grade-1 on standardized norm-reference tests.  So, his sentence had him working at the-fat-cat-sat-on-the-mat level.  We put him to work at the word level with, for example, fatima, catatonic, satisfaction, matador.  When I met him he had been expelled for bad conduct from the regular public school, then from the local charter school.  He was back in school on a sort of probationary basis.  Eleven months after we started him in the program he was on the honor role.  Magic?  No, we just threw away the Norm Reference Tests, and looked at the kid.  

I'll be back.